17 injured in Bangladesh bomb blasts

At least 17 people were wounded today when dozens of small bomb blasts rattled the capital Dhaka and districts across Bangladesh, police said, as authorities worked to count casualties and asses the damage from the explosions.

Details of the separate blasts in northern and southern Bangladesh were scant, but officials said the bombs appeared to be home-made and capable of causing only limited damage.

“It’s an organised attack,” Lufuzzaman Babar, a home ministry official, told the local TV station ATN Bangla. “It’s not a simple incident.”

In Dhaka, police were deployed to major intersections after the explosions, and were checking vehicles and pedestrians for bombs.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts, which hurt at least 17 people, but leaflets from a banned Islamic group, the Jumatul Mujahedin, were found at the scene of explosions in Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet and Mymensingh, the Bangladeshi media reported. The group wants to establish an Islamic state in predominantly Muslim Bangladesh.

The blasts took place mainly at government offices, press clubs and courts in at least eight cities and districts, police and Bangladeshi media reported.

In Dhaka, about a dozen of the bombs exploded near the airport, at court buildings and in markets, said a city official, Kalpana Rani Dutta. She had no information on casualties.

At least 10 people were injured in nine explosions in Mymensingh, a district in northern Bangladesh, said police official Shahidul Huq Bhuiyna. Among the sites targeted was the district administrator’s office.

Another 10 bombs were detonated in Sylhet, also in the north, but there were no immediate reports of casualties, said the area’s chief government administrator, SM Faisal Alam. Leaflets from Jumatul Mujahedin were found at the blast sites, he said.

In the southern district of Khagrachhari, at least seven people were injured in four blasts, said a police official, Mohammed Faruq.

Leaflets from Jumatul Mujahedin were also found at the blast sites in Khagrachhari, he said.